Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:41:11.753Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

22 - Byzantium in equilibrium, 886–944

from PART III - NON-CAROLINGIAN EUROPE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Timothy Reuter
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
Get access

Summary

in the late ninth century the Byzantine emperor’s dominions were straggling and vulnerable. The survival of the state was not in question but the government of Leo VI (886–912) faced harassment and humiliating reverses on several fronts, while fears of rebellions were all too lurid for a royal family which owed everything to a bloody palace coup barely a generation earlier.

It is against this background that one should view the various manuals of governance and law-collections dating from Leo’s reign. They evince his enthusiasm for order, godliness and good learning. Besides commissioning, compiling or interpolating these works he wrote numerous sermons. He aspired to be acknowledged as the fount of wisdom and pious enlightenment, judging by the description of his bath-house near the palace complex. Leo’s sobriquet, ‘the Wise’, implied in the bath-house imagery, acclaimed by contemporary courtiers and derided by Symeon of Bulgaria, was not wholly undeserved. Like his father Basil I, he wished his rule to be associated with illustrious figures of the Christian empire’s acknowledged heyday, notably Constantine and Justinian. At the same time he propagated the idea of renewal in, for example, his highly euphemistic version of Basil’s accession: the former state of affairs had been removed together with Basil’s senior co-emperor, Michael III, ‘for the purpose of fresh and well-ordered change’.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Canard, M. (1953), Histoire de la dynastie des H’amdanides de Jazīra et de Syrie, Paris
Dagron, G. (1983), ‘Byzance et le modèle islamique au x siècle. A propos des Constitutions tactiques de l’empereur Léon VI’, Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris Google Scholar
Dobschütz, E. (1899), Christusbilder, Leipzig
Grierson, P. (1973a, 1973b), Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection: Leo III to Nicephorus III, 717–1081, 2 vols., Washington, DC
Howard-Johnston, J. D. (1983), ‘Byzantine Anzitene’, in Mitchell, S. (ed.), Armies and Frontiers in Roman and Byzantine Anatolia (BAR, International Series 156), Oxford Google Scholar
Lemerle, P. (1967), ‘“Roga” et rente d’état aux X–XI siècles’, Revue des Etudes Byzantines 25 Google Scholar
Magdalino, P. (1988), ‘The bath of Leo the Wise and the “Macedonian Renaissance” revisited: topography, ceremonial, ideology’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 42 Google Scholar
Morris, R. (1995), Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 843–1118, Cambridge
Segal, J. B. (1970), Edessa, ‘The Blessed City’, Oxford
Sternbach, L. (1899), ‘Christophorea’, Eos 5 Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×